Q&A with Romeo Crennel 1/7

CRENNEL: “(We’re) talking about the opportunity to play a home playoff game. I think our guys have been working at it all week. We are going to try to put our best effort out there. We’ve talked to them about getting better everyday this week; we still have another day we can do that. We will see what happens.”

Q: Are you hoping it’s a weather day like today?

CRENNEL: “Both teams have to play in whatever the weather is. It’s not going to make a difference. They’ve had cold weather there before. The veterans on that team, they’re used to cold weather. Whatever it is, it is.”

Q: What do you see from your team? Are they overexcited?

CRENNEL: “They’re excited about it. We just have to let them go play. We’ve been talking to these guys all year about their technique, about how you play the game. When they play the game the correct way, we do pretty good. Hopefully we are hitting on all cylinders.”

Q: QB Joe Flacco has been sacked a lot. Do you have anything special prepared for him?

CRENNEL: “No, not that I want to share. We will wait for Sunday and see what happens. Hopefully we will get us one that way.”

Q: Knowing that you guys aren’t going to score a ton of points, do you think it makes the defensive side of the ball that much more important?

CRENNEL: “Very seldom do we score points on defense, unless we intercept one and run it in. We have a capable offense, those guys can, they can get some things going. You never know what the score is going to be. Both sides are just going to go play and do our best.”

Q: They threw the ball over 30 times five games in a row, the last three games they haven’t thrown it 20. Do you think it’s been philosophical?

CRENNEL: “I’m not sure, every game plan is a different game plan and you have to decide how you want to play the game. Evidently, they’ve decided to run it a little more the last couple of games. That’s ok, we have to defend whatever they decide to do.”

Q: What’s makes RB Ray Rice so good?

CRENNEL: “That whole team is good. One of the things that makes him really good is that he never says never. He always churns his legs, stiff arms, runs hard, he’s built low to the ground, has a low center of gravity, and he just tries extremely hard. When you do that you can usually gain some yards.”

Q: Every game you want to get a turnover obviously, but are there certain games where it is that much more important?

CRENNEL: “Even though we are a team, the defensive side of the ball, we have to do what we think is best to give us the best chance. Fortunately, we’ve been able to hold some scores down. Generally, unless we screw up they don’t score a whole lot of points on us. That’s what we have to be concerned about, and let the offense handle their side of the ball.”

Q: So you’re equally aggressive no matter the opponent?

CRENNEL: “Some people say we are not aggressive at all, so we are just going to go play the game and see what happens.”

Q: Do they have that kind of swagger that all defenses want to have on their team?

CRENNEL: “If you’re a good defense you have swagger. We’ve been working for all year is that defense. We’ve got some young players who are still learning how to play the game. We’ve made a lot of progress during the course of the year. We are going to put it out there Sunday and see what it looks like.”

Q: Stats say that you guys struggle in the Red Zone, do you agree with that?

CRENNEL: “Stats are the stats, and if that’s the case it’s because we are giving up touchdowns. We have to do a better job in the Red Zone of trying to force field goal attempts instead of giving up touchdowns.”

Q: With the new overtime rules, does that change anything for you?

CRENNEL: “I think you look at each play as potentially the last play. You can’t say they are going to punt the ball then our offense is going to go back. You got to think if they are going to be aggressive, we have to be aggressive and trying to get them off the field. They might be in four-down mode and they are going to go for it on fourth sometimes. We probably have to be in our thinking more aggressive.”